Page 20 of Outlaw

My already-straight posture grew rigid at that one word. I didn’t like it. Dread pooled in my stomach.

“We both have something we want here. You want to marry the dentist, and I want my daughter.”

If he were anyone else, I’d have balked at him knowing that Hudson was a dentist, but this was Linc. He had the world at his fingertips. I hadn’t prepared myself for it though. I should have. It was an invasion of privacy. He hadn’t gone back all the way in my past, or he would realize who I was.

The determined expression on his face was causing my throat to close and my heart to pound so loudly that I was sure they could all hear it. What did he mean about wanting Stevie? I had convinced myself he wouldn’t want her. Just like he hadn’t wanted her five years ago. I fought to inhale, and my hands trembled in my lap so hard that I had to clasp them together to stop it.

“What do you mean by that exactly?” My words sounded raspy, but without proper oxygen, it was difficult to speak.

He raised an eyebrow at me as he took a drink from his glass. Neither of the men to my right said a word. They’d been mute since I’d walked into the room, as if waiting until they were given permission to speak. He set his glass down slowly, not breaking eye contact with me. The room felt as if it were closing in on me, and I wondered if I was going to black out.

He couldn’t take my daughter from me. She was my world. My reason for living.

“It means that I missed four years of her life,” he stated. “I won’t miss any more. I realize she needs you. You’re her mother, and taking her from you would be devastating for her, even if it was every other week. Little girls need their mothers.”

I sucked in a deep breath as his words helped ebb the panic that had been overtaking me. Tears stung my eyes. I wanted to weep with relief.

His jaw clenched tightly, and his eyes darkened, as if my reaction angered him. “For me to sign the divorce papers, you will have to agree to move in here with Stevie for one year. I want the chance to build a relationship with her.Iwill be her father. She will know me as her father. Not some,” he snarled, “fucking dentist who golfs and plays tennis. She’s a Shephard.”

I shook my head. This wasn’t possible. How could he think that would work?

“Our lives are in Nashville. I have a job and an apartment there. Stevie just got accepted to the best preschool in the city—”

“I was robbed of four years of her life,” he interrupted me to repeat himself. “I won’t miss another goddamn day. My kid doesn’t belong in some fucking apartment, going to a preschool. She belongs here. With me, where I can give her a world that the dentist could never afford her.” Linc leaned back in his chair and nodded his head at the men beside me. “Now, you can agree to my generous offer, or I can win joint custody. Then, she will live here with me every other week, and we will alternate holidays. She will not be attending a preschool, and security will have to be placed with her at all times when she is not with me. Those are nonnegotiable, and if you fight me on it, you will lose.”

I’d never felt so helpless. He was taking all my plans for her away. Snatching them out from under me. Giving me no choice. Not really. If I stayed here, then Hudson would have to know all my lies. He would most likely call off the wedding. Take back his ring. Move on and find another woman to give that safe, perfect life to. But if I didn’t agree to this…then I’d be without Stevie half of the time. That was…that was impossible. I couldn’t do it.

“You s-said you d-didn’t want a kid. You said—”

“That was before. She exists, and that changes everything,” he interrupted me.

The fact that he had told me to take the morning-after pill no longer held any significance since he’d met her. Again, all myfault for bringing her here.

“You realize that this will change her entire life. Hudson won’t marry me. She won’t get the house with the white picket fence, the dog, the swing set in the backyard. All of that will be taken from her. You can get to know her and still allow us to continue the path we were on. Hudson is a good—”

“Nother father. He’s weak. He can’t protect her. As for the house, she gets a mansion. Forget the fence. We have an iron gate. If she wants a dog, then I will buy her whatever breed she chooses. As for a swing set, there is a resort-worthy pool with a waterfall and slide out back. Hell, I’ll have a goddamn playhouse fit for royalty if that makes her happy.” He looked as if he was disgusted by the sight of me. “She is mine.Iwill give her the life she deserves.”

He wasn’t going to budge. Not even a little. I felt the world I’d worked so hard for being snatched away while I sat there, unable to salvage any of it. Doing what he demanded would destroy everything I had in Nashville. Friendships that had been built around my relationship with Hudson. My career. There would be nothing to go back to when the year was over. But he probably already knew that. Just like he never intended to allow me to take her back there. I’d be required to live in this town. He just wasn’t saying it.

“I won’t have a life to go back to when the year is over.”

He took a drink, and his eyes were that of a stormy sea. Both in color and the threatening glint in them. “That’s not my problem. This is your decision to make. I suggest you choose wisely.”

I gripped my hands together so tightly in my lap that the tips of my nails were going to break the skin. This was a scenario I hadn’t thought up. One I hadn’t worked through. I’d come in here, thinking he would request to see her on occasion. Possibly once a month. Even that much time away from her seemed horrible.

“I don’t have a choice,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “But you know that. You made sure of it.”

Placing his elbows on the desk, he leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he stared at me. “Tell me, Branwen, why is it you aren’t threatening to fight me in court?”

I blinked, confused at first. Was this a test and I’d failed? Did he think I had set this up and wanted the outcome he had given me? That I wanted to live in this house with him? I’d not once given him a reason to think that. I’d give anything to be allowed to leave here with my daughter and return to our lives in Nashville. It was safe. His life, albeit one with extravagant wealth, was not. I shook my head, not sure if I was understanding him correctly.

“You heard the question. You are accepting my threats without a real fight. I want to know why.”

I blinked and watched as he tilted his head to the side, studying me closely. There was a challenge there.

He was powerful and had too many people in his pocket at his disposal—that was it. I shouldn’t know that. He’d never told me what he did. Where his wealth had come from. If I hadn’t known, if I were any other female, one he’d only met that one night in Vegas, I would believe I could fight him in court and win. Money didn’t buy a judge’s decision. Power did.

I could lie, but why? He’d done a background check, yet he still wasn’t aware that our families were connected. That I was from his past. I had never been a stranger to him.

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